The present invention relates to a video printer for obtaining a hard copy from a video signal, and relates, more particularly, to a video printer for printing a plurality of kinds of images of different image formats, which is designed to be able to obtain a hard copy from a video signal corresponding to a screen of a laterally long direction as well as a standard video signal.
In the recent years, there have been proposed video signal formats having a vertical to lateral screen aspect ratio which is different from the conventional vertical to lateral screen aspect ratio of 3 to 4 for standard television signals such as the NTSC and PAL systems. For these new signal formats, the vertical to lateral screen aspect ratio of 9 to 16 or the like (hereinafter to be referred to as a standard video signal), having a larger lateral length than the lateral length of the conventional screen, has been proposed. These new signal formats include a signal format such as "a wide NTSC" (hereinafter to be referred to as a laterally long wide signal) for transmitting an image signal having a vertical to lateral screen aspect ratio of 9 to 16 on the conventional NTSC signal. The method for transmitting an image signal of a geometrically larger lateral length than the vertical length on the conventional standard television signal will hereinafter be referred to as a wide NTSC or a wide signal system. It is needless to mention that an image of a larger lateral length can be similarly transmitted by the PAL or SECAM system. This will be explained below with reference to FIGS. 6, 7 and 9.
When an image of the conventional NTSC system is printed by the conventional video printer, an image print as shown in FIG. 6, for example, is obtained. The image obtained in this case is uniform, or similar to the image reproduced in the picture tube. In this case, an image picked up with the vertical to lateral screen aspect ratio of 3 to 4 was transmitted and reproduced in a uniform shape for printing. Similarly, when an image of the wide NTSC system is printed by the conventional printer, an image print as shown in FIG. 9 is obtained. In this case, a signal of the image is based on the assumption that the image is to be reproduced on the picture tube having a vertical to lateral screen aspect ratio of 9 to 16. Therefore, the image reproduced and printed has a larger vertical to lateral aspect ratio than the vertical to lateral aspect ratio of the original image, causing a wrong vertical to lateral aspect ratio for the printing. In other words, a true circle of the image is printed in an oval shape. According to the conventional video printer, the vertical to lateral screen aspect ratio of the image which is inputted as a signal is decided to be one fixed ratio when the input signal is decided, so that the problem as observed in FIG. 9 does not occur. However, according to the proposal of the wide NTSC system, geometrically different signals can exist even if the signals are electrically the same.
Further, as a conventional method for transmitting an image of a larger lateral length, there has been a method for transmitting the image by providing masked portions, usually set in black levels, at the upper and lower portions of the image having a vertical to lateral screen aspect ratio of 3 to 4 (hereinafter to be referred to as a masked signal), as shown in FIG. 7. According to this method, a laterally long image is transmitted but the masked portions are printed as black belts, so that the image printed is not beautiful to look at or the size of the printed image becomes smaller.
As a conventional printer, "a color hard copy unit" has been available as disclosed in the JP-A-56-64884. However, in this case, sufficient consideration has not been given to a video signal having an image display of a larger lateral length as described above.